Chapter 113: A Crash
Astintash stood in front of me, its massive frame dwarfing mine as we prepared to leave and attack the wall.
“What is that weakness the magical shield has that you told me of?” It asked me. “Your owner, Humanslayer Ainash, says you are the one with the most knowledge of it.”
“Well,” I said, “basically, it’s especially weak to physical attacks. Seems like you’ve been hitting it mainly with magic, fire breath, that sort of thing. But what’d be much easier to destroy it would be something like swiping at it with your claws. May be a bit hard to do because of their weapons, but if you take it slow and hide behind something like a nearby cliff face, you could probably get in some hits without getting hit in turn.”
Astintash looked at me silently for a while, obviously thinking. “What you say could be true. You are sure of it?”
“Yes, the knowledge comes directly from the System, it wouldn’t lie to me.”
“Hm. How much Health do each of you have?”
I frowned. Was it about to kill us? I knew we’d be taking a risk the moment we gave up our bargaining chip of that knowledge, since Astintash essentially just didn’t need us anymore. But we could still be useful. Why would it kill us?
Erani glanced over at me. “...Why?”
Astintash swung its massive head over to stare at her. “Because I want to know. Tell me.”
I grit my teeth. Astintash wouldn’t need to know our Health numbers to kill us, so I supposed it would be safe. “...Currently about 200.”
“100 for me,” Erani said, “with a shield that can block some more.”
“Hm. With the shield, that should work.”
“Work for what?” I asked.
“The fight. Get on my back.”
I blinked. Get on Astintash’s back? Get on a Dragon’s back? That was a fucking death sentence. No Dragon, ever, would allow a lowly Human to touch them and live, much less to literally use the Dragon like a transport animal.
If Astintash was going to just let us get on its back, it must’ve been desperate. Which made sense, considering what Index had told me while we rested. But still…
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I thought Dragons hated—”
“We do. Now get on my back.”
I glanced back and forth between Erani and Ainash, who was standing next to us. “...Okay.”
“Good. We leave now.”
Wind whipped through my hair, and I felt like my entire body threatened to drop from the scaly back of Astintash.
We were hundreds of paces in the air, flying above the tall peaks of the mountains as the Dragon soared us over to the wall. Astintash’s back was large enough that Erani, Ainash, and I could all fit on it with room to spare, but that didn’t mean it was easy to stay on.
Every second that ticked by my grip slipped some more, and every time Astintash flapped its wings I felt a bit more unsteady. Honestly, I felt like it was being clumsy with us on purpose as a way to regain some of its dignity, flying us around. Threatening to push us to our deaths in the mountains below was definitely one way to establish its power over us.
I had a couple stacks of Expedite cast on me and Erani to help us hold on a bit tighter. With Erani’s much higher Stats now that she had that high-Rank Bond with Ainash, she could handle herself a bit better on her own, but it still wasn’t nearly enough.
My hand slipped from one of Astintash’s rough scales, and I quickly cast another stack of Expedite and grabbed back on as quickly as I could.
I understood Astintash’s desire to get this done quickly, but still—this was a bit unnecessary, wasn’t it? Maybe it was just my new perspective, of being on the Dragon instead of watching it from below, but it felt like Astintash was going much faster than it normally did when it flew down to approach the wall.
It only took a couple minutes before the massive structure blocking the valley came into sight. It was absolutely teeming with guards, all of them obviously much more alert than normal after the defeat they’d suffered up in the mountains
I expected Astintash to slow its blistering pace now that we were close to the wall, but it only seemed to be going faster.
“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked, shouting so I could be heard over the wind.
“We are attacking.”
“Right, but shouldn’t you be slowing down?”
“No. I will be accelerating.”
“What?!”
“You said the shield was weak to physical attacks, correct? I will attack it physically.”
Attack it… Wait. Oh, gods. I suddenly realized what it was planning.
Glancing over at Erani, I saw that she must’ve noticed, too.
“Hold on!” I mentally screamed to Ainash.
She looked over at me. Luckily, she didn’t have quite as much trouble holding on to Astintash as we did because of her naturally higher Stats—especially now, after her evolution to the Draconiad. But still, with Astintash’s speed ever-increasing as it tilted its body downward and headed straight for the stone wall.
“What happening?” she asked. “Why?”
“It’s going to ram the wall!”
Her eyes widened, and she looked back at Astintash’s target. The soldiers had noticed us by now, and were quickly preparing retaliation. They were too late, though—we’d collide with them in only a few seconds.
“When I say to, jump,” Ainash said.
“What? Why—”
“Jump!”
Without thinking, I did as she said and leapt from Astintash’s scaly hide, Erani doing the same. At that instant, Astintash flew straight into the suddenly-materializing purple glowing dome shield that surrounded the wall. Its snarling face rammed straight into it, and for a second I thought the shield may hold against its massive body. Asintash’s nose flattened against the dome, its snout becoming slightly misshapen, and then—
The loudest sound I felt like I’d ever heard rang through the air, shattering my eardrums at the same moment the dome itself shattered. Purple shards of magical energy flung everywhere, bouncing harmlessly off my body and landing on the ground, quickly dissipating into nothing.
Astintash continued on its death-flight straight into the wall.
But I couldn’t focus on that, because I was also flying forward, still midair from when I leapt from the Dragon’s back. Everything had happened in a split-second, to the point where I almost forgot that I, too, was flying straight at the solid stone wall in front of me at deadly speeds.
Was this why Astintash wanted to know how much Health we all had? And after I told it I was damaged down to around 200, it decided I’d be fine?! That thing had no perspective on how much damage it’d take to kill someone like me.
And I was going to die. In the half-second before my death, I decided to reminisce on all the shit I’d survived just to be done in by flying into a massive brick wall.
Yep. Pretty disappointing.
But just before I flattened into the collection of stones in front of me, I felt something wrap around my waist. A vine. Behind me, Ainash had flung her whip out and wrapped it around my waist. But even if she could suddenly stop me in my tracks and prevent me from smacking into the stone wall, that sudden stop would kill me just as easily as hitting the bricks. And with the wall only paces in front of me, there was no way she had the space to gradually slow me down to a safe halt.
Then the second-loudest sound I’d ever heard rang out.
Astintash’s massive Dragon body slammed into the stone wall in front of me, crashing straight through it and leaving a massive hole behind. And that massive hole was where I realized I was aiming for. Ainash wasn’t wrapping the whip around me to stop me, she was trying to guide me into the only safe place I could land.
Erani, to my left, was already on-path to fly through the hole, and so was Ainash, in the air behind me. I was the only one who was a bit too far to the right.
In what felt like slow motion, I felt Ainash pull on the whip as hard as she could, yanking me through the air and toward her. But even still, it wasn’t quite enough. I was on the right course, but the wall was so close I didn’t have enough time to course-correct and avoid hitting—
My leg slammed into a stray brick of the wall on the edge of the hole, and time felt like it sped up again.
You have been slammed into something. 19 damage.
Your Health is 184.
I flipped into the hole, set spinning indiscriminately by the impact I’d made at the edge of the hole, and I could just barely make out the carnage of Astintash’s path of destruction it’d made through the wall. Shocked faces stared on in horror through the rubble and mangled bodies of the people that were in the direct path of the enraged Dragon.
And then I was through the hole in the wall, out the other side and still flying forward down the mountain path. I’d long since lost my entire sense of direction, simply lost in the mess of color of the world spinning around me.
I coughed a loud “ough,” as I hit the ground the first time.
You have been slammed into something. 34 damage.
Your Health is 150.
Then I bounced back up, only slowed down a bit, flew even further, and then hit the ground again.
You have been slammed into something. 21 damage.
Your Health is 129.
And then again.
You have been slammed into something. 20 damage.
Your Health is 109.
And then, one last time, I slammed into the ground. Only this time, the downward force wasn’t quite great enough to bounce me back up into the air. Instead, I slid across the rough gravel and dirt, rocks tearing across my skin as friction slowed me down.
You have been slammed into something. 11 damage.
Your Health is 98.
You have been burned by friction. 48 damage.
Due to Heat Resistance, damage has been reduced to 42.
Your Health is 56.
After what felt like an eternity in the sky, I was back at home on the ground. My throat was raw from screaming, which I didn’t even know I’d been doing that whole time.
Groggily, I looked around, trying to stand despite the pain of my landing. Erani and Ainash were both located a couple dozen paces from me, scattered along the path like me, and in a similar-looking shape that I was. It seemed like Erani had been mostly protected from the damage by Angelic Shield though, which was good.
Then I saw the wall. The structure that once stood tall now stood with a massive hole straight through the middle. Astintash was getting to its own feet, standing between us and the broken wall, looking proud of its work. Despite how upset I was at its almost getting us killed, I couldn’t deny the effectiveness of its methods.
Slowly, as I watched, the massive wall began to collapse in on itself. With the gigantic wound in its base, there was no way it could support its own weight, and parts began to crumble. Stones fell, support beams snapped in two, and people began to scream. Humans and Infernals alike at the top floors suddenly had the split-second decision of whether to leap from the top all the way to the ground, or take their chances with the collapse and hope they didn’t get crushed by rubble.
Chunks of stone and bricks crashed down to the ground, entire rooms fell through ceilings of the multi-layered building, the outer shell of stone began to crumble apart. Some of the people who’d chosen to leap from the top of the wall—or who had just fallen due to the instability of the thing—began impacting the ground.
Within about ten seconds, the entire wall crumbled to the dirt, completely demolished by Astintash’s attack. The surviving soldiers—maybe a quarter of who’d been in the wall to begin with—were getting to their feet, standing off against us.
In the crowd of our enemies, I spotted two people. I wasn’t surprised that they’d survived, but still, seeing them here made my heart drop.
Those two royal guards, with their bow and battleaxe, stood ready to fight. Asmo yanked her bow from her back, wiping a trail of blood trickling down her forehead with a scowl on her face. The woman with the battleaxe didn’t seem quite as eager to attack, but she wielded her weapon just the same.
And, of course, surrounding them were dozens upon dozens of Infernals and Humans, all ready to kill me—either out of hatred or fear for their own lives, it didn’t matter at this point. Was there even any distinguishing it, anymore? They wanted to kill me, and I needed to stop them from doing that. And there was a gigantic Dragon right in front of me that would surely make certain I kept up my end of our bargain.
“Okay,” Astintash rumbled back to us, “I have broken through their defenses. You will help me kill them until every last one of these pathetic beings are dead.”
I nodded and stepped forward, activating Regenerate to heal back some of the damage I took in our landing.
You have activated Regenerate. You will gain 24.9 Health over the next 10 seconds.
45.1 Stamina Cost. Your Stamina is 66.
Ideally, I could stick to killing the Infernals and let Astintash take care of the Humans, but I suspected those two royal guards wouldn’t let me off so easily.
Either way, there was no damned way I was going down without a fight.
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